The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-05-05
THE NIIND-CURE AGAIN.
Rapid and Far-Reaching Advance of the
Movement-Possible Secret of It's Success.

Brooklyn Eagle.
Since last wrote of the mind-cure the move
ment has met with no check. Whatever may
be said of the theory itself, there can be no
doubt whatever of it's wide and widening accept
Physicians know this very we'll Some
times they get angry at it. Again they speak
contemporary of it: or they regard 1t with
good humored tolerance l suspect, If the truth
were known. it would be found that the new
treatment has had a very apprecable effect upon
the incomes of the 500 doctors of whatever
school in this city.
The opponents of the school, whether with or
without intent. have made good point in enlist
ing the attention of what is called the fashion
able world. The ir earlier followers were those
who cared more for dress and like conven-
tional friyolties than intellectual Boston
woman. Indeed, believe the system. if it did
not originate there, secured its first firm foot
hold in the Eastern city. At all events. patients
and students were in the beginning drawn from
among women who aimed at serious purposes
in life, who were even not averse to mission,
or perhaps drifted easily toward ''lsns." But
understand this is so no longer People have
been known to 60 to the mind-curers with
loftier view than to get strength to renew the
fatiguing round of hard, pleasure seeking work,
which they had suspended from pure exhaustion.
What is of still more value to the practicers of
the art-if it is an arts the fact that alleged
LEADERS of called society" who perhaps do
not need treatment themselves, have taken up
the movement good thing to push.
The manner of the reception OF the scheme
by those who have none of this SOCIAL interest In
it, but only personal concern, Is curious
There are many women whose conviction as to
it's effectuality neither argument nor ridicule
could shake. Nor do they belong to an Ignorant
or i'll conditioned class. Far from 1t. There is
no free public dispensary about the mind cure.
1t costs money, and they who share its luxurl-
Gus privileges must be in more or less comforta-
Bile circumstances. All the testimonials, L
fancy, come from these. Physicians of what
ever class supposed to treat the poor gratu-
;tously. l have not heard of the mindcurers
doing anything of the kind.
But the remarkable hold the the theory has
gained is not illustrated alone by those who
believe it. The skeptics, those who are by no
means that they have been helped, who
rather incline to think they have not been, con-
tinue their visits and conferences with strange
persistence. Perhaps this is the way with all
sudden swift and prevailing movements, but l
have not observed it. Is not the explanation OF
the thing to be sought in certain delicate,
subtle and grateful hattery which the practice
offersE
I went some time ago to hear mind cure
lecture. The lecturer bright and clever,
and the impression made was uncommonly good.
1t is Just to say that the whole manner of the
thing was open, and candid. and unpretentious.
There was no pretense of miracle or machinery.
There was no assumption of occult superior
power There no claim to peculiar virtue
in touch or in teaching The discourse, in its
tone and drift, would have suited religious
meeting of any denomination. 1t was in sub
stance and in terms eXhortation to higher
life The thing needful set forth was the
rising to loftier spiritual plane. 1t was from
this exaltation that the triumph over physical
embarrassments to be won, Indifference to
disease was to be learned and even its proven
ton and cure effected. The lesson was the old
familiar sermon preached in all churches and in
ell moral essays "Be good and you will be
happy"-happy, among other things, in getting
rid of your bodily ailments.
When. at the conclusion of the lecture, re-
marks were called for some observations were
made, but they were all IN line with the move
ment. Radical objections, it is hardly necessary
to say, were not even approached. Nobody sng-
gested, for example. that assuming Mrs n
theory to be true. should naturally expect
that those who lead the highest lite would pos
the most robust physical health. We should
reasonably look to see disease most prevalent
among those IN whom the animal nature was the
most marked, while those who dweit on the
sublimated spiritual plane would know little or
nothing of the ills to which flesh is heir. Now,
common experience shows us that this. in fact
is not so. We know that some of the best peo-
pie are the most afflicted with these ills. have
doubt that the audience at the lecture, COM
posed chiefly of women, were above the average
in regard to a desire to live worthy and useful
lives. Yet there they were seeking to learn
how to get the better of their troublesome and
imperfect bodies. Who does not know that the
most spiritually minded clergymen break down
and have to be sent by their congregations to
Europef So the system seems to fail before a
simple and obvious test
Again. it might have been shown that il Mrs
N, occupying high plane, should put her finger
in the fame, it would be burned as quickly as
would the finger of somebody who dwelt on the
very lowest plane Or if Mrs. N, moving along
the serene heights of the higher life should
accidentally swallow deadly poison, it would
the very abyss OK existence.
All this seems exceedingly rudimentary, but
by ignoring such trite and familiar principles
the mind curers confound conditions which,
while related in some respects are quite distinct
and independent in their operation. The clear
conclusion from these hackneyed truths is that
there are laws Of the body as we'll as laws OF the
mind, and that it is impossible to escape the
consequences of violation of tho former by
scrupuous obedience to the latter. II
the spiritually minded clergyman applies
himself too closely to his study eats mince pie
late at night he is quite likely to have the
dyspepsia and the bad temper it provokes as the
most carnally constituted street Arab who de-
clnes to attend his Sunday-school. In other
words, there must be higher life for the body
well as for the mind, there must be physical
as well as spiritual health, and the respective
conditions determining each of these are as dis
tinct as they are rigid.
The mind -curers seem to make the counter
mistake of the materialists the latter propose to
eliminate the soul; the former, the body. Both
Indispensable and might we'll hope to
impart knowledge of the ancient and modern
languages BY cutivating the muscles to
strengthen feeble organ by course of intel
lectual and ethical discipline. 1t follows that if
the mind needs to be doctored so does the body
The lecturer laid stress upon the wisdom of
not dwelling too much on symptoms, as prac-
tice which produces imaginary diseases and ag-
gravates real ones, and urged the propretv of
thinking little better STILL all. of actual.
or imminent, apprehended ills. This is sound
philosophy. But am inclined to suspect, after
ALL that the most effective instrumentality of the
mlnd-curers Is the pleasant incense or subtle
hartery offered by them to the patient.
AS has been pointed out already, they do not
assume to do anything. The patient must do it
all himself 'You must get into relations with
the spiritual world. You must rise TO higher
life You must reach after exalted plane.
will help you far as can, but you must your
self, by the exercise of your own will, put your
own soul in that clarified environment in which
you will be superior possible to your body,
in which your physical weaknesses and diseases
will have the least power over you" Such is
&hNc thS%a ~ ~1e ~ %haf~
appeal. This sef-renunciation disarms any
picion of the patient that she is being imposed
upon-an agreeable reflection, and which
promotes that sense of independence which ID
equally gratifying. The assurance that the
patient can work out her own salvation in this
respect is soothing TO that self-esteem from
which no human being absolutely free. Is it
not easy to see that the patient is thus gently
lured into that condition in which she will most
readily believe that she is bettere Perhaps she
really is better. Who knowsl